Newspaper Headlines

I learned of a neat website. It provides a map of the US and you can click on the major cities to see the front page news of the local newspaper. Go to Newseum.

Tagged

I screwed up this morning and you might have received an invite to join a website called "Tagged." Please ignore the invite! The site is a invasive spam generator that is now annoying the hell out of me.

A friend that I play golf with sent me an invite to join. Since he is a good friend I complied and in the process they asked me which friends I wanted to send an invite to. I saw his and a couple other people and unchecked all but him. The problem is that you had to scroll down to see a much longer list. I ended up sending an inivite to a bunch of people. I apologize and ask if you haven't done anything, don't!

Colds

This morning's Wall Street Journal had an article about the common cold. It quoted a doctor that was saying the cold was not as contagious as people think...except for kids. Kids are "just a bag of viruses."

That summoned a mental picture of Josh and Pam or Chris and Laura in the evening. One looks at the other and says "is it time to put the bag of viruses" to bed?.

If You Can't Stand the Heat Get Out of the Kitchen

Harry Truman said it...and it sure works at times. I applaud this one. I am tired of celebrity somehow qualifying one for important office.

Now this guy seems able to stand the heat but it would be nice if he gave her company.

Archie

Within this past week our lives have been doubly blessed. First came our Grandson Jackson...





and then our new puppy, Archie.




Archie is getting settled in and is a huge delight. He seems to have a calm, gentle side and yet is playful. No doubt as he matures he will be more active - especially as he becomes a teenager.

Clearly he is a brilliant dog so we have already enrolled him in preschool. Hazel and I went by the school the other day to view the curriculum and meet the staff. We wanted to be sure it would provide a challenging growth opportunity. Perhaps President Obama might send his new dog to the same preschool.

We haven't decided on a university for Archie but expect to take applications in the near future.

Record Labels

The New York Times has an article about Steve Kopper's new book, "APPETITE FOR SELF-DESTRUCTION The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age." Koppers describes the mistakes the labels have made and suggests that their demise is largely their own doing. I certainly agree.

The labels and Big Three could be managed by the same CEO. Give the customer what the company wants to provide, not what the customer wants. The mentality that made them unable to adapt and conform to changing conditions such as the digital era or foreign competition.

Even now the labels hate Apple iTunes and seek ways to circumvent. They only see what could have been if only life were different and they could still force customers to buy the product the choose. Hollywood must still snorting cocaine, they are in a dream world. We hated paying $18 for one song bundled with a bunch of other junk. So when opportunity appeared to not do that...duh.

Personally I think Steve Jobs has saved the industry and their butts. Better to have some market vs. none.

I have to admit that a part of me cheers when industries like the recording labels and automakers face hard times or possible demise. I don't wish that on the many people that suffer for the stupidity of a few but my anger says Ha Ha!

The newly announced pricing of iTunes does not trouble me. Frankly I don't think $.30 more for a song is not going to have a negative impact on sales and the removal of DRM is well worth it. DRM hasn't been a real issue for me but I have always resented having a limit placed on my purchase - and again annoyed at the Labels for forcing that.

And behind all these corporate myopia is, I suspect, screwed up graduate schools. I have a Masters in Business but got it a long time ago so I can't say with certainty that graduate educators are responsible. I can see, however, how market manipulation via course content and case study could heavily influence the attitudes of students and their eventual roles as corporate heads. Gee it would be nice if the focus was in providing what the customer wanted and understanding why a business even exists.

I only hope now the labels begin to wise up but doubt it will happen. The intransigence they have displayed gives little encouragement.

Street Name

I'm in the fire department and carry a pager. When I leave the town I switch to county wide calls because a couple times I heared of traffic accidents that directly affected my travel. Today I did that and heard a medic call for a person experiencing seizures.

Nothing exceptional except the patient lived on Scorpian Dr. It made me wonder what the other streets were named in the vicinity. Was there some bright bulb working in a developers office coming up with the street names? Perhaps there was a Cockroach Ct. or Wasp Way.

So I checked Goggle maps and confirmed I had heard correctly, I had. Then checked surrounding street names but they had normal sounding names.

Was the street named by some antisocial redneck as a means of antagonizing others? I don't know of course, but it can't be pleasant to have seizures on Scorpian Drive.

Man Overboard

Just read of another person going overboard from a cruise ship. This is the second in about a week. Having just returned from a cruise I have been wondering if the railings are different on different cruise ships.

Although the woman missing off the Norwegian Pearl sounds suspicious, witnesses saw an entertainment staff member accidentally go overboard from Carnival Cruise.

The railings on Celebrity Galaxy, my cruise ship, were more then waist high (about 4 feet) and it wouldn't have been easy to go over.

The End of the U.S.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a front page article about a Russian that is forecasting the breakup of the United States sometime in 2010. He believes our country is near collapse and there will be civil war.

He forecasts the division of the country into segments - the west coast being Chinese oriented, central US being part of Canada (or Canada leaning), the east will be European oriented and the south attached to Mexico. I think he is wrong, surely California will become Mexican.

I didn't read what will happen to Hawaii. What do you think? I suspect it might become part of Antarctica but could be wrong.

December 2008 Update

We have been busy this month, first with a transatlantic cruise, then Christmas in Morrisville with Chris, Laura, and Maya, and then a bonus, a trip to visit our future puppy. More about the cruise and Christmas to come - maybe before 2010 even.

We are adopting a new puppy in late January - sometime around the 19th. It is a Havanese and the breeder invited us to come see the puppy she thought would fit us the best. Dexter as he is now known will become Archie when he joins us...or Archimedes for short.



We agreed with the breeder, Archie is an outgoing lively pup. We have been thinking about Archie being a therapy dog and also doing agility training. He seemed to be a good fit for both these endeavors but it will be up to him.



After an hour of play, tumbling, climbing and exploration Archie showed he was still a young puppy and decided it was time to nap.

The End is Near (for some things)

The New York Times has an article in Today's paper titled "Nearly the End of the line for S.U.V.'s." I view this as one of the good things coming from this recession. I've always had a somewhat jaundiced view of America's love affair with over sized vehicles.

True, they have features that attract and I was tempted to own one. But do our cities really need a Suburban lumbering through the streets, driven by a house husband on his way to the grocery store? There are exceptions but I think they are a huge excess and the shift to smaller, more fuel efficient cars is to be celebrated.

On the personal level, isn't it better to have room to park your car? To drive our highways without the threat of a testosterone bloated asshole trying to intimidate you by tailgating you 70 mph is appealing? That would just leave the testosterone bloated asshole in the Ford Prius.

Home Again

Hi everyone...well, maybe one...I think one person is reading this beside Hazel. So for that special one, we are home from our cruise and had a great time. We wish you a Merry Christmas.

I'll write more about the cruise in the near future and include a few pictures. I think I took over 700 shots so should find a couple worthy of posting. Most will be deleted. Shot a lot of sunrises and sunsets as we crossed the ocean and usually with them you end of dumping most since only a few are at the peak moments.

Also, since I shot them in raw format it will probably take over an hour to download them all. Then I have to edit and remove the unwanted shots, then convert them to smaller files for uploading. Most times I get tired of messing with them before I get through the whole process and just never post them. This time I promise I will...it might be 2010 but I'll get there.

Why shoot in raw if they are that much trouble? I'm always hopeful that one will turn out well and be worth printing. True, I know some shots aren't even in contention but it gets troublesome to switch the camera back and forth between the formats and I'm certain I'll forget to do so for the one great shot I was looking for.

San Francisco November 2008

We are in San Francisco, visiting our grandchild Tyler. While here we have said hello to his folks and to our other son and daughter-in-law...and our friends. We always enjoy these trips and miss living here. In the city there is a special individual freedom that I experience no where else. People have a greater freedom to be themselves.

That freedom spawns some interesting offshoots. In the local paper "Guardian" is a note about an event focused on participatory art. Spanning several days, it involves a panel discussion titled "Open Works." A discussion of the notion of indeterminacy and openness to chance and change. Sadly I'll miss that, and even worse, the Thursday night series titled "The Art of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art." Also, not to be missed, but we will, "Silent" musical score 4'33", occurring daily, 4'33" bypasses instrumentation, shifting attention to the audience and ambient sounds.

I think my musical genius would enhance such an event. Baritone farts providing antiphonal balance.

Obama and Race

I got a email a while back pointing out the subtle racial tones of this presidential race. I don't recall some of the points made - some very valid ones and as is usually the case some which were such a stretch they undermined the message.

What I remember, for example, is it saying what if Obama stood on a stage with a seventeen year old out of wedlock daughter. Race stereotyping would come to play as we thought yeah, "those" people have no morals! There were better comparisons but I do not recall them, sorry.

The sense of the email was how unfair our attitudes are toward a black running for president. I found it interesting but what it didn't say, if it had been a balanced and fair comment on race, is that if Obama were white it would be very unlikely he would even be in the race.

Think about a white freshmen senator with little experience, far left contacts, very liberal voting record and so on. I doubt he would get a chance to get any where near a primary. His early record would be enough to make people reject as too liberal to support. What if our "white" democratic contender had a extremist pastor that said "God damn America?"

So please, don't bring up that argument, it goes both ways.

Oh, and was really amused to see Sarah Palin on TV questioning Obama's experience. What's the term....hutspah? Well, would Sarah Palin be leading a Republican ticket if she had gone into the race on her own? I doubt it - too inexperienced, very conservative religious views, etc. She is running only as vice-president only because John McCain selected her. Conservative Republicans might have liked her but she would not engender enough support through the party and on a national level to do it on her own. Do you disagree? I think there are similarities here.

I don't think our political process does a good job of selecting the best candidates to lead our country. I think we should ask five year olds! The "Are you smarter then a five year old" show on TV has shown how highly qualified they are!

Magicjack

I heard about this new phone tool Magicjack that allows you to make free local and long distance calls through your computer (in some area codes). It looks like it could be a good deal for some folks but this website, as is the case for many now days, makes it very hard to find out the cost.

I am always irritated when they make it so difficult to find product costs, I guess they want to "sell" me on the product first. Sometimes I end up pretending I am going to buy the product and go through the initial purchase information, and then close the window before completing with the transaction.

It is another case of customer dis-service. Companies, like people are lemmings on concepts. One or a few start moving in a direction and most others do the same just because it is the way they think you achieve results. If some are doing it, then it must be right.

Sure would be nice if companies returned to the days when they made a genuine effort to service the customer. As for Magicjack...how much does it cost? Don't know, didn't want to waste more time finding out.

The Stock Market is Normal

Stocks dropped significantly today on news that retail sales are down. Duh...what did they think they would hear? Of course the public curbed their spending when Washington was panicking.

I've always viewed the market with bemusement when it responds to the obvious like this. The way I see it, speculators dump stocks, or buy, on the slightest whim and it is they who are causing today's swing. Speculators make lousy barometers of the market's overall health.

To think that the market swings are over or that we are through the worse and it will be a steady upward trend is out of touch with reality. However, I can actually view today's market response with some optimism because it is Wall Street functioning like it normally does...abnormally.

The Economy

Finally couldn't resist making a comment about the plunging economy. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published graphs showing the stock market during the Great Depression, the recessionary 1970's and the most recent period of 2000 to present. In the first two, unemployment was a major factor that brought the market down. That hasn't been the case in the present period but don't give up hope.

Unemployment is sure to rise drastically and when the stats are announced will likely trigger another Wall Street sell off by frenetic investors. I doubt the sell off will be huge as the market will have pretty much bottomed out by then (I suspect around 7000 on the Dow). Another buying opportunity for the daring or reckless.

As to the Dow low point, I should start a pool. Who wants 8000?

The Lesser of Evils

It always seems to become a choice between the lesser of evils in the presidential race. This time I have to decide whether I want to vote for a man that is, in my estimation, too old to serve two terms (I think that is a requisite) with a running mate that is a hockey mom, inexperienced in world politics; or a man I view as a glib opportunist with little in the way of real credentials or experience. A man that has questionable ties to others and rose in power through the corrupt good old boys stage of Chicago politics.

Hell, maybe our local county sheriff should run for president as soon as he gets out of prison.

Who Can You Trust?

This plunging economy has wrecked havoc. You can't even trust a bunny.

Football on Steroids

The Wall Street Journal had an article yesterday about steroid use in the NFL. Essentially it said that steroids are heavily used, especially by linemen. The reason no one seems to be concerned is those folks are not well known.

Barry Bonds is well known and has had major influence on game results. Thus the investigations, etc. Unless you are a major football buff, you probably cannot name more then one or two linemen...if that. They undoubtedly have impact on game results but not near that of the money boys - quarterbacks and receivers so no one seems to care.

The astounding statistic cited is that NFL linemen are 90 lbs heavier, on average, then 25 years ago. The NFL has thus enacted more rules to protect quarterbacks, etc. from body damage but it seems I see more and more players being carried off the field. Its time to ban steroids from all sports - and be serious about it.